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Badmovies.org Forum  |  Movies  |  Bad Movies  |  Steven Seagal Double Session (II) - Half past dead. « previous next »
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Author Topic: Steven Seagal Double Session (II) - Half past dead.  (Read 970 times)
Neville
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« on: June 25, 2003, 09:29:10 AM »

First of all, my apologies. I planned to watch and review this one last week, but when I taunted my friends to go into a theatre and pay good money to watch a Steven Seagal movie they all started screaming and running as fast as they could. Finally, I had to watch it with one of my best male friends, who has watched enough bad action by himself to make feel a bit jealous. I imagine that the conclusion you can take from this is that Seagal's reputation among the cinephiles is not exactly at its top level.


Half Past Dead.
------------------------

I have to say that if I sounded genuinely surprised when I reviewed "The foreigner" is because the usual Seagal traits we all are used to were nowhere to be seen. Watching HFD after that one almost feels like trying old shoes again, because it seems that Seagal, who partially produced both films, didn't feel very happy with the outcome of the experiment. As a result, the plot of HPD almost seems like a Steven Seagal greatest hits. Just imagine: after the unusual retired CIA agent he played before, here he is a cop whose wife was killed ("Hard to kill" alarm), who uses unusually violent methods ("Type your favourite Seagal movie here" alarm), teams with a rapper ("Exit wounds" alarm) and ends up playing John McLane against a bunch of terrorists. So much for originality.

This comeback to the usual Seagal movie has its good and bad points. The good points are that what didn't work on "The foreigner", that is the plot and the action, here goes quite well. I mean, the plot is no "Chinatown", but yet another "Die hard" rip off, this time with undercover cop Seagal fighting terrorists on Alcatraz (!), but inside the B-Movie standards it keeps a certain sense, and it does not try to confound the viewer with constant plot twists. The action is also slightly better than its predecessor. Looks like this time they hired somebody who at least knew the basics of what we could call "The MTV art of turning an action movie into a videoclip". Seagal again does much of the action shooting people, but gets more involved in hand-to-hand combat than before, and said combat is fairly better staged than in "The foreigner". At least, director Don Michael Paul knows how to use the appropiate camera angles and shots so we can see that Seagal is doing the action and not the camera. If only they had reduced the use of wires... I actually like well used wires, but it was a bit tiresome to constantly watch people spinning into the air after what looked like quite normal kicks.

The most obvious of the bad points I mentioned before is originality. Look, this is "Die hard" on Alcatraz, or "Under Siege 3", as you prefer. I would say that in terms of quality this one falls between the first dull, un-spectacular "Under Siege" (Personally I never understood why people liked it so much) and the wacky, insane "Under Siege II", which I absolutely loved. It is quite fast paced, as most B-Movies are (pace it is not a problem when you have no fillers or subplots to waste your time in), but despite Ja Rule's attempts at being annoying there is quite little comedy on this one. Plus the main villains are nothing to write home about, and good villains are always part of the fun in this kind of movies. And yet another negative point is that the infamous Seagal pseudo-mystical "message" is back, but at least it is limited to several conversations between Seagal and a sentenced to death prisoner about, I'd say, the futility of existence. You see, brief as these moments are, I felt like opening my head with a screwdriver for a while.


In general terms, I'd say I enjoyed the flick. As I pointed out, it has its strong and weak points, but overall it is a decent enough entertainment. And die-hard bad movie lovers like me will have a truly great time when, in the third act of the movie, action becomes as loud as improbable, or when at certain stages, all logic goes out of the window. In a particularly hilarious scene the terrorist leader tries to obtain vital information from the death sentenced prisoner, and all he can think about is threatening to kill the jury that sentenced the prisoner to death and is there to witness his execution. The face of horror of the prisoner has to be seen to be believed. Thanks writers, I really needed those laughs.

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Fearless Freep
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« Reply #1 on: June 25, 2003, 09:31:48 AM »

dull, un-spectacular "Under Siege" (Personally I never understood why people liked it so much)

Gary Busey and Tommy Lee Jones

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=======================
Going places unmapped, to do things unplanned, to people unsuspecting
Dolph Lundgren
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« Reply #2 on: June 25, 2003, 03:23:13 PM »

Freep hit the nail on the head with Under Siege.. Busey can turn almost any movie to gold.  Busey + Seagal + action film + breasts = great.  Jones was good, too.

Glad to hear you didn't hate Half Past Dead, Neville.  A friend of mine who usually hates anything that Seagal's involved in could even tolerate this movie.  Sure, it might not be Seagal's best, but it's a good time waster.  

Nick
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